FON BOCCIO POST 6

This Fon Boccio post has been vetted as being authentic with signs
of use and age.

Figure posts like these, Boccio, were placed outdoors and sunk into the
earth, becoming wonderfully aged by exposure. Despite their small scale,
they seem to gain a spiritual monumentality from being fused with the earth
and believed in by man. Standing at the entrance of a village, a courtyard,
a house, or a shrine, they served a protective function, barring the entrance
of evil spirits.

These were not portraits or specific spirits, rather, the carved figure
in human form is a repository or decoy for a spiritual force. In this instance
the carved figure is a kind of substitute or stalking horse for the people
it is meant to protect. Here, as in much African art, the form of the sculpture
is related more to ideas about reality, both visible and invisible, than
to the literal representation of nature.

These Boccio posts were often crudely worked. Many are carved by self-taught
sculptors and lack refinement. Appropriate to their nature, which is nonhuman
and nonspecific, and to their exposure to the elements, Boccio figures seldom
have individual characteristics or individual human embellishments such
as coiffures or scarification.